What's a Listening Log? Well, the idea is quite simple. It's a weekly segment that consolidates all the mini-reviews Dozens Of Donuts has given on RateYourMusic over the past week, split between the Past and Present. A straightforward grading scale has been put in place, ranging from A+ to F-, with C acting as the baseline average. There is no set amount of reviews per week, just however many I get around to reviewing. And don't expect week-of reviews. I wait one month - with at least three listens under my belt - before I rate and review an album. Enjoy!
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2005 | Indie Rock | Listen
ANXIETIES FESTERING THROUGH MIDDLE CLASS STRIFE
There are better Indie Rock albums and there are worse. But I'd point to no other LP than Apologies To The Queen Mary for epitomizing an era in the mid 2000's wrought with energetic angst and artistic sensibility. Do not misconstrue this as praise, for originality Wolf Parade's debut lacks tremendously. But then again, so would any album depicted as an example of a broad, sweeping sub-genre. The most prominent comparative point has to be Modest Mouse, and only partly due to Isaac Brock's position as mentor and executive producer. The jaunty restlessness and quirky instrumentation would pique curiosity, but Dan Boeckner's ineludible mimicry of Brock's iconic vocal idiosyncrasies tips the scales into total imitation. 'You Are A Runner & I Am My Father's Son,' 'Grounds For Divorce,' 'Fancy Claps,' and essentially this entire album feels like the conclusive bridge between Modest Mouse's 2004 LP Good News For People Who Love Bad News and their 2007 We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. Tracks like 'Same Ghost Every Night' and 'We Built Another World' even share the lyrical whimsy and depressed gravity of the latter.
The direct influences don't stop there though, as Wolf Parade incorporate the trendy Post-Punk Revival ('Grounds For Divorce,' 'It's A Curse') of Interpol and Franz Ferdinand, while the triumphant 'I'll Believe In Anything' recalls Broken Social Scene's 'Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl' and 'Dear Sons & Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts' yelps similarly to TV On The Radio's naive debonair. Those two, coincidentally enough, are Apologies To The Queen Mary's best efforts. No matter how many Indie bands attempt the anthemic end-all prose, I'll never tire of it, and 'I'll Believe In Anything' does it damn well. Oh, throw Wilco into 'This Heart's On Fire' because it's impossible not to hear Jeff Tweedy on his celebratory, upbeat saunter.
Apologies To The Queen Mary is a frustrating album for these reasons. Wolf Parade aren't just unoriginal, they're essentially devoid of unaffected thought. The slight use of synthesizers to spruce up the backgrounds on, let's say, 'Grounds For Divorce,' 'Shine A Light,' and 'I'll Believe In Anything' for example, is the only facet preventing Apologies from succumbing to total anonymity. Yet it's frustrating because, like the aforementioned bands Wolf Parade successfully emulates, it's good. Apologies To The Queen Mary is a good album with memorable hooks, passionate release, and instrumentation that tickles the eardrum. It's just not innovative.
B-
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2004 | Progressive Pop | Listen
SCRAMBLING TRIVIAL MEMORIES LIKE TATTERED POTPOURRI
If there's one thing The Fiery Furnaces can't be criticized for, it's lack of ambition. At 76 tireless minutes, Blueberry Boat never settles for austerity, essentially demanding a vehement reaction from the listener. Some adore their schizophrenic brand of Progressive Pop, others loathe it. The beauty of Blueberry Boat is that both ends of the spectrum are valid and justified, often times within the span of a single song thrice over. If you thought 13 songs, with five nearing double digits, were exhausting enough just understand that each have a litany of components, structureless and indiscriminate, that sextuple that baseline. It's the calling card of Blueberry Boat, as tracks like 'Quay Cur,' 'Blueberry Boat,' 'Chris Michaels,' and 'Mason City' clobber sections into one another like a crash test dummy to a wall. Over and over and over. One moment quirky Indie Pop a la Islands and Unicorns, the next cursory, industrial Electronica that recalls Silver Apples. Recalcitrant Singer/Songwriter evincing Regina Spektor, splattering Neo-Psychedelia typifying Mercury Rev, intrepid Krautrock sweetening Can. It's cLOUDDEAD for bookworms.
By that assertion, it's unquestionably one of the most eclectic albums in existence, heightening the stereotypes of your quirky, nonconformist hipster to unreachable levels. At times it approaches parody, especially when taking into account the absurdist triviality of Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger's lyrics. Like the production, the Friedberger's switch carelessly between nonsensicalities that epitomize their quirky personalities and sobering poetics that cause one to stop and think. However, because of the stark distinction between the polar opposite halves, neither really draw out a visceral reaction. It seems artistic for artistic sake.
Taking all this into account I'm truly conflicted as to my stance on Blueberry Boat. There are moments, like the frantic Punk Rock skewered into 'Chris Michaels' that recalls The Raincoats' 'No Looking,' or the clangorous anodic stripping of acoustics on 'My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found' that soar to great heights. But nothing sticks or is elaborated upon, which is how The Fiery Furnaces like it. The same, by extension, goes for the negative moments rampant across even Blueberry Boat's best tracks. Their rude interruption makes their appearance particularly wrenching, seen most prominently on 'Blueberry Boat' which is marred by tone-deaf Electronics, or 'Mason City' which features an excellent first half only to be curtailed by a forgettable piano plod. A difficult album to say the least, Blueberry Boat never fails to elicit a reaction. Me? Let's just settle in the middle.
C+
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1998 | Musique concrète | Listen
FORGOTTEN BY MAN BEFORE YOU'RE EVEN BORN
Aphasia's Stereoisomerism is a difficult album. It is miles away from accessible in every avenue it takes, including the particularly esoteric and formidable Musique concrète genre it's affiliated with. Normally musical endeavors that stray from convention do so through an artistic lens that, while challenging and afflictive, expose their true intentions rather obtrusively. Not Stereoisomerism, with its labyrinthine assimilation of Field Recordings, Power Noise, Dark Ambient, and Drum N' Bass. There's meaning behind the festering tension, spontaneous impetuous, and jarring translocations of sound. Aphasia's work, unlike most in the Sound Collage scene, feels calculated not randomized, established not haphazard. Yet finding significance in every convulsing Noise split ('Stereoisomerism 2') and how it affects the bustling, but obscured socialite recordings interspersed about Stereoisomerism proves toilsome. Especially when the information given on the surface - a poverty-stricken African child and nondescript track titles - doesn't offer any solid answers.
But attempting to reveal that mystery is part of the fun. The way the sporadic, convivial samples - coming full circle in full exposure on 'Stereoisomerism 6' - seem indifferent towards the derelict atmospherics and brooding debauchery of revulsion lend inquiries into patricharical class divide in third world countries. After the enduring 25 minutes of 'Stereoisomerism 5,' wherein escape is futile amidst an invasive swarm of prickly sound design, 'Stereoisomerism 6's' jocund regalia really imposes a cruel distinction between life within the walls of royalty and the sullen surrender that exists outside of it. While that may not have been Aphasia's intent - as, to be fair, the modernized use of Drum N' Bass in the darkest of moments fails to fit with such speculation - success in stimulating art comes from the myriad of interpretations it can provide.
That being said, like many Sound Collage albums that came before and after, Stereoisomerism's replayability is virtually nonexistent. Even the incorporation of Drum N' Bass, which you'd assume to be used as a conduit for Electronica fans, fails to be gratifying when that time is spent laboring over the somber gravity it intends to sidestep. The closest we find to conventional 90's music here is 'Stereoisomerism 3's' middling portion with its moody, ricocheting Big Beat, and 'Stereoisomerism 4,' which bears slight resemblance to Trip Hop. Still, accessible Stereoisomerism is not. Provocative to weather for a one-time experience? Absolutely.
C
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